• 23 Posts
  • 477 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 7th, 2023

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  • Showroom7561@lemmy.caOPtoLinux@lemmy.mlThank you
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    14 hours ago

    And to add to that, even with vanilla Gnome, you have the option to do what you like via extensions. If you want it to look like a Mac or Windows UI, you can!

    My wife doesn’t care, as long as it works. If I can set up favorites/shortcuts to the stuff she needs access to, she’s golden.



  • Showroom7561@lemmy.caOPtoLinux@lemmy.mlThank you
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    16 hours ago

    I’m curious about your choice of Gnome for your wife, though. If she’s hopeless with computers, why give her a less (imho) intuitive DE to play with?

    It’s like using a chromebook, and the less there is to click on, the better.

    Any software she already uses would be available as a flatpak, so even updating is easier vs windows.




  • Showroom7561@lemmy.caOPtoLinux@lemmy.mlThank you
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    1 day ago

    I really don’t know what the problem was with Ubuntu. I had issues every time I tried… but funny enough, these problems seemed to only happen if I was running a live USB or an installed copy. Ubuntu or Mint on a VM seems to work just fine! LOL

    Oh well, I’m quite happy with where I’m at now, but I’m glad that my past issues don’t seem common or “normal”.


  • Showroom7561@lemmy.caOPtoLinux@lemmy.mlThank you
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    1 day ago

    it’s not user-hostile by design like windows

    Truth!

    You install Linux, and you start using Linux.

    With Windows, you go through a painfully long installation process, then spend another hour debloating all the shortcuts and shit it installs. Then more time closing out boxes for offers. Then you have to harden it before your data is stolen…

    Don’t get me wrong, Windows has been stable and reliable for me, but this is likely due to the fact that my installation has been tweaked over the years. Using it fresh is a horrible experience. Reminds me of using the internet without an adblocker! LOL


  • Showroom7561@lemmy.caOPtoLinux@lemmy.mlThank you
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    1 day ago

    Yes! As much as I wanted to love Mint and Ubuntu, they just didn’t work well for me. Aurora has been amazing.

    I am trying to stay with Flatpak apps (for convenience and probably stability, too), but I feel pretty safe installing apps outside of Discover, if needed. Fortunately, most of the stuff I use is already supported as a Flatpak, so it hasn’t been a big shock.

    I feel like if people started on Linux first, moving to Windows would seem like a massive PITA and a huge backwards! I’ll be moving my wife to Bluefin in the near future. She’s unbelievably hopeless with computers, but I honestly think it would be easier for her to use Gnome on Bluefin than Windows!


  • Showroom7561@lemmy.caOPtoLinux@lemmy.mlThank you
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    1 day ago

    I mean, even just the fact that everything seems to simply work (i.e. drivers) without messing around is mind-blowing. Huge kudos to anyone who’s helped to build Linux into what it is today.

    It’ll be interesting to see how my desktop handles it. It’s like 15 years old, and I remember always having to mess around to get things working right, especially wifi.





  • Yes, but is this them being assholes, or them wanting to make sure that users aren’t making their system unreliable? I think there would be a huge distinction there.

    For example, say a user wanted to create a cache drive using an SSD. But because the user doesn’t know better, they buy the cheapest crap they can find, install it, and set up caching. But because they’re using cheap shit, the drive is slow and the user reports poor performance, system hangups, and other instability.

    Wouldn’t it be in Synology’s best interest to say “here’s a list of drives we know will give you the best experience.”?

    Now, Synology has already done that, but users are ignoring it and continue to use poor storage drives expecting to use pretty sophisticated features. What now? Well, Synology disables those features.

    For example:

    De-duplication, lifespan analysis, and automatic HDD firmware updates could also disappear on non-approved drives

    Um, yeah. That makes sense. If a shitty hard drive can’t reliably get firmware updates through the NAS, why on earth would they want to keep that option enabled? Same with lifespan analysis. If a crappy drive isn’t using modern standards and protocols for measuring and logging errors and performance data, Synology really can’t “enable” this to work, can they?

    That’s what I think is happening. Although, this could be just greed, too. I don’t think there’s any real problem for most users, unless they say that we can’t use fairly common, high-quality NAS drives from Seagate or WD and must use their own branded drives. I’d have a huge problem with that.


  • Are we overreacting? Hasn’t Synology always had a list of “certified” drives for their NAS’, which end up being the same HDDs we would tend to use anyway?

    I can understand that they don’t want people using any garbage storage drives, which could increase failure and make Synology NAS’ look unreliable.

    Unless something has changed, this is how they’ve always done it, just like how every laptop manufacturer will say which RAM and storage works best (for reliability and performance) on their machines.


  • Yes, incoming.

    Outgoing is another can of worms.

    I try to run any of my iot devices on an isolated network. At most, they can see eachother, and that’s it.

    Some devices need an internet connection, unfortunately.

    The best you can do, if you’re unable to block their collection outright, is to run them through a tracker-blocking DNS (either self-hosted or something like Adguard DNS).

    That can minimize unnecessary pings home.

    Personally, if I think that a device is being malicious in their attempts to phone home, I stop using the device. I also try to make an effort to not get a smart device, if the alternative (unconnected option) works fine.

    Digital minimalism is one way to protect ourselves from rampant data collection and profiling.






  • Someone below mentioned Aurora, Bazzite’s sister. I currently use Bluefin, which is another of Bazzite’s sisters, also on Framework,

    I know nothing about these… but I just installed Aurora in Boxes to try, and damn, it’s nice. Maybe a little “too busy”, but it’s got everything I could ask for out of the box (no need for extension manager). I might replace Mint with Aurora on my MiniPC, but if it’s as unbreakable as they say, it may replace Fedora.

    Right now, Fedora has still be very stable, but since I’m staring from scratch, I might as well get it right the first time. I’ll be experimenting more to see which I prefer.